SA sees ‘sustained downward trend’ in Covid-19 cases

South Africa’s third wave of coronavirus infections is petering out as the number of cases and the positivity rate of those tested drops, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said.

“The current surge in Covid-19 infections seems to be showing signs of a sustained downward trend,” the institute said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that infections were declining in all nine provinces.

The institute reported 7 338 cases on Wednesday and a 13.3% positivity rate of tests. Still, so far over 2.83 million South Africans have had confirmed infections with the disease and 84 152 are known to have died from the virus.

“The provinces of Gauteng and Limpopo have already met the end-of-wave threshold criteria,” Adrian Puren, the acting director of the institute, said in the statement. Gauteng is the country’s industrial hub and home to one in four South Africans.

The number of excess deaths, a measurement of deaths compared to a historical average, rose to more than 253 000 since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a Wednesday report from the South African Medical Research Council. Excess deaths are seen by many scientists as a more accurate assessment of the impact of the coronavirus.